Marsha Blackburn

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, one of the challenges we face in this era of great power competition is identifying unique threats before they escalate. When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, these threats have come into full focus. Vladimir Putin took off his statesman costume and declared a war of choice on Ukraine. Last week, we received the first public allegations of his intent to unleash Syrian proxies on anyone still standing between his war machine and the territory he covets. I am glad to hear more of my colleagues speaking up about the unique dangers of proxy wars. Last week, I laid out in detail how Putin has used proxies to install himself in countries that are leadership poor but resource rich. We know that fighters from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group have slaughtered their way through Africa and the Middle East on behalf of Putin's grand Soviet ambition. And now he is going to do the very same thing in Ukraine. We have also seen Iran unleash proxies and State-sponsored terror organizations in Iraq, against American Armed Forces and against civilian populations in Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza. In their 2022 threat assessment, the intelligence community stated: We assess that Iran will threaten U.S. persons directly and via proxy attacks, particularly in the Middle East. This is a public statement. This is the Annual Threat Assessment. It is backed by years of evidence, proving that Iran has done this before and they are going to try to do it again. President Biden should be doing everything in his power to keep this threat as far away from American citizens as he can--but no such luck. The impending nuclear deal he is trying to hand Tehran unlocks billions of dollars for Iranian banks, companies, and other entities that finance violence. Where does the White House think that money will end up? We know there is nothing Tehran loves more than a power vacuum. They have invested heavily in Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas--all terrorist organizations hunkered down in some of the world's most unstable regions. Over the past decade, the Iranians have spent more than $16 million on carefully targeted bloodshed. That is right--Iran alone, the largest state sponsor of terrorism. The landscape is chaos, and, still, the Biden administration is pushing the world toward a sanctions relief scheme that would empower the Iranians to terrorize and subjugate even more people. The regime in Tehran is a menace. This week, incoming CENTCOM commander, General Kurilla, said as much in his confirmation hearing when we asked him how sanctions relief would affect the Iranian influence. I am quoting him: [T]here is a risk with sanctions relief that Iran would use some of that money to support its proxies and terrorism in the region, and if it did, it could increase risk to our forces in the region. In this week's CENTCOM posture review before the Armed Services Committee, outgoing commander, General McKenzie, acknowledged these concerns about sanctions relief, saying: [T]here is a risk that they could use that money in ways that we would not want them to use that money. That is right. We certainly don't want them to put one more penny toward these proxy wars, for good reasons. First, proxies don't just parachute in and declare victory. They brutalize entire populations and use weapons that these hostile regimes wouldn't normally have access to. Second, because proxies operate outside the law, the rogue regimes that hire them maintain plausible deniability. Third, this plausible deniability creates a false sense of security that allows hostile governments to pull up a chair to the negotiating table and pretend to fit in with normal countries, all the while denying the United States access and placement. We have a limited number of ways to deter hostile regimes from waging war on the civilized world. The West failed the people of Ukraine in this regard, but it is not too late to change course. Ronald Reagan once said: [W]ar comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted. He believed in achieving peace through strength, and so do I. It is pretty simple. If you don't stand up for yourself, you will get run over, and if you don't stand up for your friends, there may not be anyone left to help them when the wolves are actually at the door. When I talk to Tennesseans about this, the one thing they want to know is why President Biden makes decisions that make this country more vulnerable and less safe. Whether through lifting sanctions on Iran, slow-walking sanctions on Russia, or keeping our economy entangled with China's, Biden has refused to lead. Forget doing what needs to be done; he won't even say what needs to be said. He is fearful. He is scared to anger the new Axis of Evil. He is scared to anger our more timid allies in Europe. He is scared to anger the radical left here at home. Is there anything that he is not afraid of? He is so weak-kneed in the face of adversity that he can't even bring himself to finish building the fence that would secure our southern border. I want to focus on that border security for just a few minutes because, while Russia and Iran might dominate headlines, for Tennesseans, our wide-open southern border is a perfect example of what can happen when a President concedes national security to score points on his political rivals. Border encounters were up 2 percent in February. That is almost 165,000 people trying to enter the country unnoticed; 76 percent of the people the Border Patrol caught were single adults; cocaine seizures increased 83 percent; meth, 97 percent; heroin, 173 percent. We know for a fact that terrorists and members of international criminal organizations cross our border with impunity. Over the course of 3 days last December, the Border Patrol arrested a guerrilla member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, four MS-13 gang members, and an 18th Street gang member--six--six--distinguished representatives from the most dangerous gangs in the entire world and they almost disappeared into the country undetected. Thank goodness for law enforcement because these are not ordinary criminals. In January of 2021, the Department of Justice indicted the 14 most senior members of MS-13 on charges of conspiracy to support, finance, and commit acts of terrorism. Is this the Biden doctrine--choosing vulnerability over security and annihilation through weakness? Who exactly does the President intend to win over with this approach? Ukraine will find no peace in the easing of diplomatic tensions on some U.N. panel. Children in Africa won't have a future if we start writing checks to proxy fighters. The people of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras won't be better off if we enable the drug dealers and sex traffickers who make a living exploiting their families. No matter where in the world you look, you can see the costs of Joe Biden's willful blindness to danger. He has the tools he needs to protect the United States from these threats. Now, he needs to use them. It is time to stop relying on foreign oil and make the country energy independent again: Finish the Keystone Pipeline. Do an Operation Warp Speed for energy. Allow oil and gas exploration on Federal land. We have to stop leading from behind when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. President Biden must submit to Congress any deal with Iran; and rest assured, we will block the implementation of anything the White House tries to sneak under the radar. We must pay attention to the flow of money and power in proxy hotbeds and recognize the danger posed by these terrorists for hire. We can't neglect security threats close to home. It is time to secure the border and give our law enforcement officials the resources they need to catch terrorists and gang members before they disappear into the country. Tennesseans can't identify with the President's refusal to lead. They are confused and frightened, but they also have faith in our ability as a country to pull out of this skid. They believe in the promise of America. All they want is for their President and elected leaders to prove that they also believe in this country. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, last week, the Senate passed a $1.5 trillion funding bill that the Democratic majority insisted was full of must-pass, got-to-have-it, can't-live-without-it provisions that the American people were demanding. Unfortunately, the reality of what made it into that bill doesn't match the fantasy my Democratic colleagues conjured up for the cameras. In reality, this $1.5 trillion package was another spending spree. It was complete with 4,400 earmarks--4,400 earmarks. Now, these earmarks don't have any Federal nexus. They are not connected to your military post or your Federal highway. These are things for shopping centers and parks and city renovations and--you name it--pet projects. So that is not government funding; that is a Big Government windfall that the American people simply can't afford. As we all know, an inability to pay for these programs has never stopped this Democratic majority from shoving through their radical and increasingly destructive agenda. By their own admission, the out-of- control spending habits have contributed to decades-high inflation. Imagine that. What we know is that, in Tennessee, I am talking to people every day. They can't afford food and gas and to pay all of their monthly expenses, but for some reason, my Democratic colleagues think taxpayers will be happy to pay for their pet projects back home--all 4,400 of them. You just can't make this stuff up. The American people are really confused by this. They are also completely appalled by Joe Biden's refusal to secure the border, his refusal to invest in American energy independence, and his willingness to keep our economy entangled with the Chinese Communist Party. Every one of these points worries them. Yet what really scares them is the President's refusal to discuss any of it: Just don't talk about it. It will go away. Inflation, that is transitory. If gas is too expensive, go buy yourself an electric vehicle. This is just so disrespectful of hard-working men and women. Joe Biden has caused a lot more problems than he solved during the first year of his Presidency, and his constant pivots away from life- or-death problems have destroyed what little trust the American people had left in his ability to get the job done. They like to think that the President cares about what happens to them--the American people, the citizens--but they haven't seen any evidence to suggest that he is thinking about them. Last week, I was up on the Plateau in Tennessee, talking to Tennesseans about what is going on here in the Senate. Most of what they tell me boils down to one simple truth: From where they are sitting and the news they are watching and the papers they are reading, it is clear that the Democrats have a very aggressive agenda, but they have no vision for the future of this country. They feel like what the Democrats want is control over their daily life, not a vision of a country filled with open doors and opportunity for all. They are not seeing that out of this agenda. Why, they ask me, do their elected representatives take such drastic measures to do things that make their lives harder, that make their situations worse? They can't figure it out. Since Joe Biden and the Democrats took control, inflation has skyrocketed. We have become energy dependent on Russia. We have abandoned not one, but two embassies. We hightailed it out of there. Two embassies, cut and run. Our Border Patrol, they are apprehending known terrorists and MS-13 gang members who are coming into this country. If they are apprehending them, we are getting some but not all. And now we are hearing about Russia going out, going to Iran, saying: Let me have your soldiers for hire; let me have your proxies, the Wagner Group, which is closely aligned with Vladimir Putin. And all the time, Tennesseans are saying: Well, what about these terrorists trying to come over the southern border? Are they mercenaries? Are they soldiers for hire? People are raising these issues. And this is all part of what the Democrats have accomplished this year. The American people tolerate quite a bit from their government, but one thing they won't accept is a President who shrugs his shoulders, runs from the podium, who claims to be a victim of circumstance, who is weak-kneed and refuses to lead. Even former Obama White House officials have come forward begging the Biden administration to stop the spin, face reality, show some leadership, deal with the situation. This has to be getting embarrassing, even for them. The American people have spent the past year watching Joe Biden abandon the policies that kept the country from collapsing under the weight of the pandemic. And what has he replaced those policies with? Mandates, lockdowns that have made the country poorer, increased regulation that has stopped oil and gas exploration, increased regulation that is making it tougher on manufacturers, a push for higher taxes--that is what they are doing. And do you know what? It makes people less hopeful. It makes people less free. It gives people fewer options. See, that is what they are seeing. The Democratic agenda is all about government control of your life. It is an agenda; it is not a vision for this country, for our children, for our grandchildren that is rooted in opportunity for all. There is only one way to undo this damage and to stop this train that this administration is pushing as hard as they can toward socialism. The President needs to stop the spin. He needs to start listening to what people are saying, people across the country. Here is the thing: They don't want this President to fail. They don't want him to fail. They don't want this country to fail, so it means that the President is going to have to stop bowing to all of this environmentalism as a religion and climate change as a god. They need to stop that. They need to see, yes, we need to have an Operation Warp Speed, to be energy independent, pull everybody together--Federal Agencies, the private sector. We are the United States of America, and if we had the desire, we could do this. We could be energy independent once again. We could stand strong. We could stand strong against Russia, against Iran, against China and the Chinese Communist Party. What that is going to require is an administration and a Democratic Party that has a vision for the greatness and goodness of this country. I think that what we have to do is we have to lead the way in saying it is time to show respect for the American people, to listen to what they are telling us, and to make certain that we stand for this country, standing strong for future generations. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I do want to thank my colleague from Florida for doing the right thing for our partners in Ukraine by bringing up this supplemental appropriation for its own vote--its own vote. But this isn't something that he should have had to do. It is something that should have been demanded by every Member of this Chamber. Vladimir Putin is waging a war, an all-out war on Ukraine. He has reduced maternity hospitals, orphanages, schools, and private homes to piles of rubble. He has boobytrapped humanitarian corridors. He is using weapons so horrific that to possess them constitutes a war crime. And he is preparing to terrorize civilians with the same proxy fighters that have brutalized innocents in Mali and in Syria. And here we stand as our Democrat colleagues try to use an aid bill for Ukraine to link onto its back a $1.5 trillion spending spree. At last count, there are more than 4,000 earmarks in this omnibus spending bill. You and I have been through the issue of earmarks when we each were Members in the House. Earmarks, 4,000 of them, this bill is divisive, controversial, and requires actual deliberation and debate. It should not be used as a vehicle to hold this emergency funding for Ukraine hostage. The fact that we even have to have this discussion is just disrespectful of the process. And it does not help the Ukrainian people. It slows down the aid to them. It is time to stop this manipulation in its tracks. We need to give the people of Ukraine airpower. We need to give them humanitarian aid. And it needs to be done now. We need to give them the funding and the support that they need to survive, and it should be done now. And we need to separate this supplemental from this $1.5 trillion spending spree, and it ought to be done now. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, conditions are bad in Ukraine, and they are getting worse. Vladimir Putin's war is escalating in severity and scale. This past Sunday, we received the first public reports that Russia is now deploying proxy fighters to Ukraine. Putin put out the call to action in Syria, Southeast Asia, and Chechnya, and now the mercenaries are pouring in. On Tuesday, we heard further allegations that as many as 1,000 proxy fighters from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group will deploy to Ukraine and attack Kyiv. This latest news about proxy developments makes it even more obvious how willfully blind the President has been to the disaster unfolding in Ukraine. If you look back at footage from the past few months, it is clear that the Biden administration thought they would be able to talk Putin out of this. They thought they could send in the diplomats, offer a few concessions, pat everyone on the back, and head home. But while they were lining up their talking points, Vladimir Putin was lining up bodies to throw at Ukrainian defenses. When we first started to debate the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses to the free world, it took a lot of time to convince the skeptics of China's tight hold on the global order. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, cheap telecom build-outs, and control over important supply chains, Beijing has created spheres of economic influence all across the globe. The Kremlin has done the same thing with its proxies. But it is important to remember that this is not new information. The existence of Wagner and other Russian proxy groups is not a secret, and neither is their brutal history. This won't be Wagner's first time in Ukraine. If fact, that is where these mercenaries actually got started. But for the past decade, they have been wreaking havoc all across Africa. Again, this is no secret. We know for a fact that they have caused chaos and bloodshed in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Madagascar, Mozambique, and the Central African Republic and that they have helped turn Mali into yet another ``hermit kingdom.'' And what have the Russians received in return? They have gotten access to oilfields, diamond mines, silver, gold, and other extremely valuable natural resources. By using his proxies, Putin gets the best of all worlds. He is able to force open doors into strategically important areas. He will then suck them dry of their natural resources and make his own name synonymous with violence in the face of resistance. Furthermore, mercenaries exist outside the bounds of laws and norms, which means groups like Wagner operate with impunity and give cover and plausible deniability to Moscow. In their opinion, it is the perfect legal fiction. Meanwhile, these proxy fighters have been accused of abductions, torture, and rape. They murder journalists and conduct summary executions on behalf of their Kremlin overlords. They target civilian populations with the specific purpose of terrorizing innocents and eliminating dissent, and when they are done, they simply disappear. That is what Vladimir Putin is preparing to unleash on the brave Ukrainian people. I sent, and other Members joined me--we have insisted since February 24 that this is not a special military operation; this is a war. But by bringing proxies into the mix, Putin has signaled that he is prepared to do more than inflict violence on key strategic targets; he is preparing for a massacre. This isn't a head fake. He knows exactly what he is doing because he has done it before. He is following the Syria playbook to the letter, from the booby-trapped humanitarian corridors to his use of cluster bombs, to the presence of proxies to carry out his dirty deeds. It is no wonder that Moscow has ordered their fighters to travel with mobile crematoriums. It is the only way they will be able to even attempt to cover up the brutality inflicted by Putin's private army. Over the past few months, Putin has shown us exactly what he intends to do to the brave Ukrainian people. He has made no attempt to hide behind diplomacy. His military commits war crimes in broad daylight for the benefit of the cameras. The introduction of proxies is the natural progression of this increasingly savage attack. It is time for President Biden to pull the blinders off and decide what America's response ought to be, and he has to do that right now. We have deprioritized the African theater for far too long, and now it is a breeding ground for glorified terror squads. That absolutely has to change. Russia is using proxies this very moment to destabilize and exploit Mali. We know what they did to the people of Syria. The pictures were too graphic for the nightly news. It is time to remind the world what happened there and make it clear that unless we do something, Ukraine is next. We must also send a strong signal to Putin, Wagner, and other thugs around the world that there will be no more hiding. Collect the evidence now. Document the war crimes now. Prepare for prosecutions now. We must let Vladimir Putin know that no amount of propaganda can cover up the atrocities that he and his private army plan to commit against the people of Ukraine. But we have to do it before it is too late to free the world from Moscow's grip. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, like most of my colleagues, I spent the weekend monitoring the war in Ukraine. I took the opportunity to join the video conference with President Zelenskyy. I don't know how anyone could have hung up from that call confused about Vladimir Putin's intentions with Ukraine. Indeed, I think we saw that Vladimir Putin has ill intent for anyone who opposes him. What is happening in Ukraine is not a ``special military operation,'' as Putin likes to say; it is an all-out war. Putin has caused a massive humanitarian and human rights crisis, and even though the world is collapsing around him, he has given no indication of pulling back. The sanctions imposed by the free world have had a devastating impact on Russia's economy. The ruble just crashed to a record low. The United States just instituted a ban on Russian flights over our airspace. Sports organizations, entertainers, and private corporations are all avoiding Russia like the plague. If Putin's goal was to transform Russia into another ``hermit kingdom,'' he is well on his way to making that dream a reality. The very idea seems insane, but remember, Vladimir Putin may be a madman, but he is a madman who is very intentional in what he is doing. He is reading the terrain, and he sees that the world's foremost superpower is too busy worrying about optics to do the one thing that would send Russia's economy back to the stone age. Putin sent his army to invade Ukraine on February 24. The Ukrainian people have endured 11 days of savagery, and we still have not imposed meaningful sanctions on the Russian energy sector. But now, the entire world knows that Putin is using energy as a weapon. Russia is now the U.S.'s third largest supplier of crude oil. The European Union gets about 40 percent of its gas imports and more than a quarter of its oil from Russia. We are feeling the pain every time we put gas in our cars, but looking at oil prices is still a bright spot in Putin's day. Russia is really a great big oil depot with an army, and he knows that much of the world is depending on Russian oil. He is financing his war with every single tank of U.S. gas at a time. Every time you pull up to fill up your tank, this is what is happening. As long as Joe Biden refuses to tear us free from our entanglement with Russian energy, he is complicit with every single barrel of oil that he buys. Energy is the most powerful economic weapon that Putin has at his disposal. It is his currency. The only way to neutralize it is to cut off the revenue stream. We must sanction the Russian energy sector, and we must do it now. We must end the purchasing of Russian oil. It is important to our partners in Ukraine and to our own Nation's security. Last year, Joe Biden made the unilateral decision to destroy energy independence in the United States when he canceled the Keystone Pipeline and banned new oil and gas leases on Federal land--that is right. Colleagues, in January 2021, we were energy independent. We were a net exporter of energy. But Joe Biden changed all that. He decided that by Executive order--not by a vote of the House or the Senate but by Executive order--he was going to end energy independence. So where does that put us? It has placed us right into the hands of a warmonger who is hellbent on recreating the U.S.S.R. And his weapon, No. 1 weapon, is energy. He does indeed think he has got you over the barrel. Our energy sector needs certainty, not a series of actions based on the President's political whims, and we should give them that certainty by allowing us to move to energy independence. I implore the President to see reason and to end this dangerously foolish entanglement with Moscow and Russian oil. On that note, I think it should be made clear to everybody that the answer is not to go to Venezuela and negotiate to buy Venezuelan oil from another madman, and the answer is not to have the Russians working as an intermediary on a new Iran nuclear deal, which, by the way, the people of this country do not want to be entangled with Iran. By the way, we hear they are negotiating to buy Iranian oil. This is about the dumbest damn thing I have ever heard of. It is amazing. You are going to go do business with Venezuela and with Iran and have the Russians involved in the middle of that? This is astounding. This weekend, as I talked to Tennesseans, they could not believe that this administration would be stooping to such. Sanction Russian energy. Restart the Keystone Pipeline. Open up capped wells. Stop flaring natural gas. Put it into the supply chain. Make certain that you are drilling domestically, exploring domestically. Do it before it is too late. Our mission as Americans has not changed. We have a duty to preserve and protect freedom. The sheer availability of live footage and photographs flowing out of Ukraine has highlighted the importance of that mission to protect and preserve security. This isn't the first time that Putin has invaded sovereign territory, but it is the first time that his crimes have been live-streamed for the entire world to see. And as far as the free world is concerned, most of us have correctly identified the villain, but there are more than a few people out there who need persuading, and it is our job to help keep the information flowing. Early on in the war, Putin launched cyber attacks to destabilize Ukraine and prevent communications with the outside world. Through my work on the Armed Services Committee, I have supported funding for domestic programs that would help protect State and local governments here in the United States from these types of attacks. In the fiscal year 2022 NDAA, we created the Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Program to make sure that our Federal Government can keep up with cyber threats like the ones from Moscow being launched at the Ukrainians, but when it comes to defending freedom, shoring up our own defenses is not enough. We have to look outward and prevent the kinds of vulnerabilities Putin is trying to create. Last week, I introduced the Internet Freedom and Operations Act with my colleague Senator Menendez. This legislation builds off of the work we did together on the Open Technology Fund Authorization Act. It would authorize more than $100 million to support programs and circumvention technologies that keep the internet up and running in conflict zones and under other repressive media environments. We have successfully used this technology to put control over information back in the hands of the people, right where it belongs. Dictators like Putin suppress dissent for a reason. The truth is that free speech scares them to death. They don't want it. They want cancel culture--only one point of view, and it is theirs. From where I am sitting, it is clear that Putin is right to be fearful of the resistance in Ukraine and around the world and especially in his own country, as his citizens are taking to the streets--thousands protesting, thousands being arrested--so that they can push forward with freedom in their countries. I would encourage my colleagues to support the freedom fighters in Ukraine and elsewhere, support them by signing on to the INFO Act. Again, I thank Senator Menendez for his work on that. We have talked a lot lately about sanctions and Stingers and ammunition, but I would argue that what has rattled Putin the most is how powerless he is to stop people from speaking. As I mentioned earlier, his war crimes are being broadcast in real time to anybody who has a screen and an internet connection. Russian citizens are protesting in the streets against the Russian Government. His struggling military is the subject of intense ridicule on every digital platform. It is a propagandist's worst nightmare and the source of immense hope for the Ukrainian people. And--God bless them--they are in the fight. We have a duty to help keep that hope alive, and I would encourage my colleagues who haven't yet realized this to join together this week to stand up for the people in Ukraine, to stand up for energy independence in this country, and to stand up for free speech. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech to the European Parliament this week, he made it clear that the time for long-winded negotiations is over. He said that in Ukraine, ``We're dealing with reality . . . we're dealing with real life.'' The footage coming out of Ukraine is absolutely horrifying. Putin has shocked the world with the level of brutality he is inflicting on civilians--men, women and precious children. But remember that none of this happened overnight. These last 3 months of bluster and buildup from Moscow were more than just idle threats. We saw it coming. And still, it is abundantly clear that Joe Biden and his advisers have not accepted this reality. I have come to the floor more times than I can count to remind my colleagues how dangerous it is to remain entangled with governments controlled by dictators and mad men. I am encouraged by the growing level of bipartisan awareness of this danger but discouraged by how long it has taken us to get there. It took the better part of 2 years for this body to rally around supply chain security. I am sorry to say my Democratic colleagues' priorities were out of order during the height of the pandemic, even when it came to something as simple as holding Beijing accountable for unleashing COVID and destroying the global economy. Too many people had fooled themselves into believing that diplomacy with China required dependence on China. And just like that, we found ourselves at the mercy of Xi Jinping. It has taken all-out war in Ukraine for many of my colleagues to learn the same hard lesson about Vladimir Putin and our entanglement with Russia's state-controlled energy sector. It is the same old story. What started out as interdependence has turned into a serious vulnerability. It is especially true for our European counterparts who bet everything on their gamble with Moscow and played right into Putin's hands. Now, here we are. Russia is the world's largest gas depot; Europe is on the brink of an energy crisis; and the world is dipping into strategic petroleum reserves to avert chaos. Yes, we are all in this mess together, but we ought not to be. It did not have to be this way. It is hard to believe that before Joe Biden took his oath of office, the United States of America was energy independent. That is correct. Go back and look at the numbers, 2019, 2020--energy independent. It took a lot of hard work, but, yes, we got there. President Trump opened up all Federal lands for new oil and gas exploration. He also approved the Keystone XL Pipeline, which created thousands of jobs and would have brought energy production closer to home. Trump also used sanctions against Russian energy companies when he needed to. He used them against Gazprom and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, and also against Rosneft for helping Venezuela evade oil sanctions. It worked. The proof was right there in front of us. You could see it. Then, along comes President Biden, and what did he choose to do? He had a choice. He made a decision. Yes, it was intentional. It was to satisfy the leftists who are running the Democratic Party. So what did Joe Biden do? He crushed American energy. That is right. He suspended all of those oil and gas leases on Federal land. On the very first day of his administration, he took great pride in saying one of his first actions, one of the very first things that he did, was to kill the Keystone Pipeline, and then he blocked new energy infrastructure. And then, for good measure, he made those pesky Nord Stream 2 sanctions go away. What had Vladimir Putin asked for? He wanted Nord Stream 2, no sanctions. Joe Biden gave it to him. He did not even put any conditions on it. None. Zip. Old buddy, old pal, this is what you wanted? I am going to give it to you. I will give you Nord Stream 2--at the same time locking down U.S. energy production. For the Members of this Chamber who come from energy-producing States, if you are supporting President Biden in this endeavor, then you are supporting actions that disadvantage your State. Think about that--jobs, Keystone, having energy independence, which, as we are seeing, this has quite an impact on our Nation's security and on our global security. Well, for all of those actions that stopped energy production, the Democratic Party loved him for it, of course. As I said, they are being run by the far-left wing. The environmental lobby? Oh, they loved and praised Joe Biden for this, and at first the Europeans kind of liked it also. But then look where it got us. We fell out of energy independence and into a rat's nest of entanglements with one of the world's most belligerent dictators. Russia is now our third largest supplier of crude oil. The EU gets around 40 percent of its gas imports and more than a quarter of its oil from Russia. Instead of using Keystone to send 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day to refiners in Nebraska and Texas, we depend on Russia to give us over 600,000 barrels per day. Our German friends have finally questioned the wisdom of their failed energy scheme with Moscow, but they are still vulnerable. Everyone is vulnerable. Putin is using energy as a weapon. This is not up for debate. There was an interesting article in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, revealing that Russia is still exporting its oil and natural gas throughout the world. Gazprom and Rosneft pull in around 30 percent of Russia's budget revenues. That is right--two companies. As I said, Russia, is a big oil depot, and they have an army. Thirty percent of the country's oil revenues are from Gazprom and Rosneft. And as of right now, they have been able to completely avoid major Western sanctions. Shameful. They have managed to do this even though we know this gives Moscow some level of control over the rest of the global economy. These companies are Putin's economic lifeline and his best leverage against the West, his best leverage against Ukraine. I am quoting from the Wall Street Journal article: In recent months, Mr. Putin deployed Gazprom, the largest exporter of natural gas to the European market, as a geopolitical tool by throttling deliveries to the continent, European officials and analysts have said. That exacerbated an already-growing gas deficit and led to a surge in prices. Both companies have always denied having a political agenda and insisted they are pursuing legitimate business interests, but in recent years European officials and foreign-policy experts have said Gazprom in particular has been acting as a foreign-policy instrument for the Russian government. The article goes on to detail how Putin is financing his war against Ukraine with the help of these puppet corporations. Energy is his most powerful economic weapon, and the only way to neutralize it is to cut off the revenue stream. Sanctions related to the SWIFT banking system and other financial punishments are important, but they are not going to be a silver bullet. The Biden administration has repeatedly said that sanctions against the Russian energy sector would be too radical, but I would suggest that perhaps the Biden administration is not the best judge of what is too radical when it comes to regaining energy independence. I would remind my Democratic colleagues that it was the Biden administration that decided that oil and gas leases on Federal lands were too radical; that the Keystone Pipeline was too radical; and that sanctions on Putin's pipeline to Western Europe, that was too radical. Joe Biden didn't let energy independence slip away. He was and is the architect of its destruction. When you go fill up your car, every time, $20, $25 more, Joe Biden did that. When you look at logistics costs and delivery fees that are coming to you because of the price of gas, you can thank Joe Biden that you are paying these higher delivery fees. When you look at the cost of packaging and products and it is costing you more, because energy affects inflation, this is what Joe Biden has done in 1 year--in 1 year. We were energy independent. We were a net exporter of oil and gas--an energy exporter. And now look at where we are. In this week's State of the Union Address, the President made no indication he intends to clean up the mess he has made. Why is that? It was intentional. This is what they intended to do to you, the American citizen. This is what they have done: Keystone, new pipeline infrastructure, returning us to having to ask OPEC--who, by the way, the OPEC nations, they are the third largest holder of U.S. debt. You know, colleagues, this makes no sense. When you could be exporting energy, but you are importing it from people who do not wish us well, from Russia--from Russia--who is using those proceeds to carry out this war in Ukraine, this makes no sense. It is why the President does not intend to clean up this mess. No, the climate-obsessed Biden administration is going to drag the country into a future defined by many of the same unsustainable green energy policies that threw Europe into chaos. They would rather buy Russian oil and fund a war in Ukraine than produce oil here in the USA. This is a policy that defies logic. The time for passing the buck is at an end. Sanctions on the Russian energy sector aren't radical; they are a means of survival, and we need to use them now. This week, we saw some truly stunning demonstrations of solidarity with Ukraine. And on behalf of our common cause for freedom and liberty, the free world has said no to Putin's war. But if we don't back up those declarations, we are inviting more chaos. This week, Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.N. reminded us of the cost of this willful blindness--and, yes, it is willful blindness. He said: If we fail to respond now we will face much more than criticism. We will face oblivion. It must not happen. Now it is time to act, time to help Ukraine, which is now paying the ultimate price for the freedom and security of itself and of the world. Joe Biden won't be able to soft-talk his way out of this impending disaster that is unfolding right before our eyes. I would implore all of my colleagues, each and every one who claims to be inspired by President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian freedom fighters, to follow their example. Do your duty and put yourselves between the American people and the evil that Putin will surely inflict on us if we don't use every option available at our disposal to stop him. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I would also like to briefly quote for the record precisely what I asked him to do: I urge you to make very clear to the American public that the Department of Homeland Security does not consider those who disagree with this administration to be domestic terrorists. I further urge you to clarify that the Department will not interfere with the rights of all Americans to speak publicly about their political views, including any views that might conflict with the policies and political talking points of this administration. . . . I urge you to revise the Bulletin to make clear to the American public that it is decidedly not the role of the Department of Homeland Security to enforce particular narratives or to quash the speech of those who disagree with this administration. This is a very simple request. My hope is that Secretary Mayorkas recognizes his obligation to put everyone at ease by fulfilling it. I can guarantee there are people in my beloved Tennessee who are very upset, as they have read this bulletin, because they treasure their free speech. They treasure the ability to have robust political debate. They like talking with their friends and neighbors and having those discussions and seeing if they can pull them to their side of an issue, whether it is a local, State, or a Federal issue. They want to preserve that freedom. This memo says that freedom does go away, that it overrides the Constitution, that it overrides the rule of law. If you do it, somebody can report you, and it will be considered something not tolerated by this administration. The Biden administration put out this bulletin to highlight a particular danger, but the real danger lies in the document's subtext. Even if Secretary Mayorkas makes good on his oath to defend the Constitution and if he moves forward to revise the bulletin, I fear much damage has already been done. Through this document, the Biden administration has made it abundantly clear that they view dissent as a threat and that punishing dissent is the cost of maintaining public safety. I wish I could dismiss this as yet another political spat, but the White House is the world's biggest and most powerful bully pulpit. When the Biden administration talks, people listen, and they take them seriously. If what I have laid out today is not the position of the Biden administration, it is their obligation to speak up and to correct the record. If it is their position, it is our obligation as elected representatives to put ourselves between the American people and any official who would dare tolerate such a dystopian power grab. Also, we should remind those officials that how they feel about our constitutional right to dissent is absolutely irrelevant. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, over the past year, the Biden administration has put out some truly absurd propaganda, but last week, they released something that was so over the top that I had to double- check to make sure that it was real. Yes, of course, it has up here that it was issued February 7, 2 p.m., and it is going to expire June 7 of this year at 2 p.m. It had all the markings of something that was legitimate, but it is so outrageous that I confirmed that it was actually a government-issued document. Of course, I am referring to the Homeland Security memo that is summarizing the current terror threat to the United States. Under normal circumstances, you would expect a threat assessment to be a helpful document. That is what we have come to expect. But in this case, it wasn't obvious before, but now it is so obvious. It is crystal clear that conventional definitions of the word ``normal'' no longer apply to this administration. If you have not read this, you will not believe your eyes. What makes it so uniquely infuriating is the ease with which DHS used an official document to equate violent terrorists with Americans who refuse to fall in line with the Biden administration's narrative of the day. They did it so easily, just laying out their case of threat assessments to the United States. Alongside descriptions of actual violence and threats against churches and schools, DHS warns of ``the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. Government institutions.'' The bulletin specifically identifies ``widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19'' as ``[k]ey factors . . . contributing to the current heightened threat environment.'' Yes, you heard me correct. They identify widespread online proliferation of false and misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. So let's decode this. They are not just talking about acts of violence committed to achieve a political or an ideological goal; they are talking about dissent. What does DHS suggest someone do if they find themselves menaced in the court of public opinion? They want you to report the offender to law enforcement. That is right--report the offender to law enforcement. I have come to the floor time and again to detail just how frightened the American people are of Joe Biden's radical agenda, but this bulletin is the best evidence I have seen to date of just how frightened Joe Biden is of the American people. They must be scared to death over there in that White House. How dare anybody question them? How dare anybody call them into question for the agenda that they have? I would even go so far as to suggest that this betrays his administration's desire to police the speech, thoughts, and opinions of American citizens and to deputize the public to help keep dissenters in line. The Biden administration is as close as they ever have been to declaring that expressing public disagreement with their agenda is akin to an act of domestic terrorism. Think about this. It isn't just an outrage; it is dangerous for a few different reasons, the most important of which is that it ignores the line differentiating violence and threats from constitutionally protected speech. The former have no place in public discourse. Let me be very clear about that. The former have no place in public discourse. The latter is essential to the functioning of our democracy. Indeed, this Nation's democracy--one of the reasons we have stayed free and have stayed a democratic republic is because we share respect for robust, respectful political debate. But it appears, with this administration, they have thrown that out the window to say: It is our way or it is the highway. We don't want to hear any dissent. We don't want to hear a point, a counterpoint. We don't want to entertain an objection. We are busy. We are busy pushing our socialist agenda. We don't have time for free-thinking, independent individuals to raise their hands and ask a question. It is ``get in line'' time. We have a short window. We have to make this happen. I would suggest also that it cheapens the horrors of actual terrorism and dilutes the perceived danger of violent extremism. It is an insult to the memories of those who died in the September 11 attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing and to those who were at gunpoint at a Colleyville, TX, synagogue. But lastly and most despicably, it suggests that Americans will never be safe until we consent to live in a constant state of fear. According to this bulletin, security is impossible in the face of dissent. It betrays a nightmarish and completely un-American end game. Today, I sent a letter to Secretary Mayorkas urging him to make it clear that this is just sloppy communication on their part. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have that letter printed in the Record.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, last week, most of my friends on the left pretended to be shocked by a new CNN poll that proved what a lot of Tennesseans have known for quite a while, and it is that Joe Biden and his agenda with the Biden administration is truly upside down with the American people. Here is what we found out: Fifty-eight percent of the American people disapprove of the way he is handling his job as President. That alone is really an indictment on what they have been putting forward, but it gets a little bit worse. Sixty-two percent disapprove of how he has mishandled the economy. Fifty-seven percent think his approach to fighting crime is not working. They believe that because they are seeing it in their streets in their hometowns. Fifty-five percent don't like how he is responding to Xi Jinping. Fifty-six percent are worried about how he is handling Putin, and I am sure that number, in particular, will go up before the next poll comes out. These numbers are brutal, but here is the cherry on top. Fifty-seven percent believe Biden's first year in office has been a total failure; and when asked whether or not Joe Biden's government represents the views of people like themselves, 68 percent of the people polled said, No, Joe Biden and his administration do not represent my views. It is pretty simple--the American people are not buying what Joe Biden and this administration are selling. And the people in the White House seem to put their hands up, and they just cannot figure this out. They can't understand why the people won't just shut up and do what they are told. Here is the secret: It is because when the people look at Washington--when Tennesseans look at Washington, and they look at who is in charge of our government--and Democrats have control of the House, the Senate, the White House--all they see is an empty suit with an agenda. There is no vision, but there is agenda. They have got the to-do list. They have got the list of boxes they need to check off. We killed the Keystone Pipeline. We put mandates in place. We have got people in masks. We have got people in lockdowns. They are going to lose their job if they don't go get a jab. They have got an agenda. For all of his bluster about fundamentally transforming our way of life, all Joe Biden has managed to do is to alienate his fellow countrymen. Now, his allies are trying to turn the tide by revamping their talking points. But here is the problem: It won't work, because this administration--the Biden administration--does not have a messaging problem. Their problem is their agenda that they have that is lackluster with no vision. But the American people are paying attention to this. And you know what they are seeing? I have to tell you, it really frightens them. It frightens them. Doesn't matter if I go to one of the grandkids' ballgames, go to church, go to the grocery store, run some errands, I am hearing from people what they see happening. The cramdown, the control, it frightens them. And there is no distracting them from the fact that the President is weaponizing this liberal wish list against what they have as the vision for their future, for their children, for their family. For the past year, Tennesseans have watched Biden dodge and weave and ignore what the people are telling him--the people are telling him. Democrats in Washington have treated their political rivals like enemies and accused them of racism, treachery, all for the crime of drawing a line in the sand and saying no. It is amazing. I wish some of my colleagues did want to stand up for freedom. The people deserve better than that. And I will tell you what, they know it. No talking point is going to convince them to tolerate the intolerable from their government. And, yes, inflation, mandates, lockdowns, the open border, crime in the street, the debacle of Afghanistan, problems with Russia, the situation with Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran, the list grows every single day--every single day. It is the wrong agenda. As I said, it lacks vision. At the beginning of these remarks, I said that the liberals pretended to be shocked by Biden's terrible poll numbers, and I stand by that statement because the truth is the White House, my Democratic colleagues, and their allies in the media know that they are kind of circling the drain when it comes to what they are pushing forward on the people. But for some reason, they think that just one more power grab is going to do the trick. It will be the magic bullet. That certainly is a tactic, but it also will fail because the people know that it is the people of this country that have built this country. And it is built on a foundation that treasures faith, family, freedom, hope, and opportunity. And if you have got an agenda and a checklist and a to-do list, but you have no vision for a better future, the American people will not buy what you are selling. I yield the floor. Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I commend my colleague for talking about dark money. I was so curious this week when I saw--I think it was--a New York Times article about the amount of dark money that came from the Democratic side of the aisle this year far outpacing anything that Republicans had spent. So I hope he is going to be successful in dealing with some of his supporters on that side of the aisle. Crime and Border Security Mr. President, what I want to focus on today is a meeting that I had the opportunity to have last week with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police and yesterday with Tennessee sheriffs who had come up. And one of the things that they talked about repeatedly in these meetings is the recent crime spike. This is something on everybody's mind, and for good reason. The majority of America's 40 most populous cities saw an increase in homicides last year--40 most populous, increase, homicides. More officers were intentionally killed on the job than in any other year since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This is why morale is low. Shoplifting is surging, and the thieves are getting creative. Instead of stuffing merchandise in their clothing and smuggling it out the door, gangs of thieves are executing smash-and-grab raids. We are also seeing a spike in drug use. Overdose deaths were up 30 percent in 2020. This is not trivial; it is not frivolous; it is not a laughing matter; and it is something you cannot just overlook. It is life. And I am sorry to say that Tennessee hasn't escaped this terrible trend. In 2021, the homicide spike in Memphis set a new record. We lost more than 3,000 Tennesseans to drug overdoses in 2020. Law enforcement officers take this personally because they see how quickly crime can destroy a community. Are they worried? Yes. Do they have reason to be worried? Absolutely. As I said, morale is low. Recruiting is hard. But here is what struck me about my conversation with the police chiefs and the sheriffs. They don't only consider the local effects. They really see the big picture and the issue writ large for what it truly is. You won't be surprised to know that the lack of security along our southern border came up more than once in these conversations. The chiefs, the officers see the ripple effects of the Biden administration's absolutely demoralizing failure to enforce the law. On his first day in the White House, President Biden endorsed lawlessness when he made it harder for Border Patrol to secure the country. That stroke of a pen caused absolute chaos on our southern border. Border Patrol detained more than 1.7 million migrants between January and September of 2021, and 1.1 million of those people were single adults. They were not families. Those 1.7 million were just the ones we were able to catch. We will never know how many hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways'' made it into the interior of the country, nor do we know what they were bringing in with them that they were trying to evade the Border Patrol. People and drugs are flowing across the border. Just last week, I came here to the floor and told the story of the Border Patrol's $7 million week. Between January 21 and January 28, 1 week, they seized 47 pounds of meth, 3,800 pounds of marijuana, and almost 20 pounds of cocaine--1 week. Hopefully, those drug mules are behind bars, but, remember, those are just the drug mules we caught. We do not know what the ``got-aways'' were bringing in with them or how many drug mules there were or how many hundreds of women they were trafficking in for sex trafficking, for human trafficking, for gangs, for labor crews. We don't know. My Democratic colleagues continue to spin the border crisis as a purely humanitarian issue, but what we are seeing along our southern border is lawbreaking. In many cases, it is dangerous criminal behavior. And the Biden administration is ignoring every bit of it. Don't believe what you see. Don't believe the Border Patrol. Don't believe the people who are down there running videos. Oh, no. Everything is fine. Just listen to them. But do you know who does not believe this? Our law enforcement officers. They don't believe what this administration is saying because they see something different. Every town is a border town, every State is a border State because of that open southern border. Our law enforcement officers can't ignore this. They can't ignore the ripple effects because they live it every single day. They put on the belt, the badge. They go out, and they do their job. They see how the Democrats' desire to ignore lawless behavior when it benefits their narrative has created a perfect storm of violence, of fear, and has empowered criminals--not quite the message you want to send if you believe in the rule of law. Just yesterday, I had to send a letter to Health and Human Services demanding to know why taxpayer dollars are funding fresh crack pipes for drug addicts. That is right. A HHS spokesman has confirmed that the Agency is pushing a grant program that would fund so-called smoking kits with pipes for users to smoke crystal meth, crack cocaine, and ``any illicit substances''--government-funded drug paraphernalia. Every once in a while, you think you have heard it all. Meanwhile, the border sits wide open, crime is on the rise, and we are asking police departments to do more with less. A recent survey showed that between April 2020 and April 2021, police force retirements were up 45 percent, and resignations were up 18 percent compared to the previous year. There is no coincidence there. It is time for the administration to decide whose side they are on. Are they on the side of the American people? Are they on the side of law enforcement? Are they on the side of criminals and monsters who really are responsible for this terrible crime spike? I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. It makes no sense to make a name for yourself creating secure devices for Western users but to then turn around and go out of your way to make the devices in the hands of the world's most vulnerable people less secure. The time has come for us as a country to decide what matters more: preserving this toxic entanglement with China or preserving life and liberty and the democratic ideals that make us so fortunate to begin with. I ask my colleagues to consider joining me and Senator Blumenthal in support of the Open App Markets Act to protect competition, to protect consumers, and to protect those basic human rights that the world's most powerful corporations have decided should take a backseat to access and profit. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, here in the United States, the mobile app market represents a reliable multibillion-dollar payday for Big Tech. In 2020, Americans downloaded 13.4 billion apps onto their mobile devices. Needless to say, mobile apps are a key component of our digital economy, so it may be surprising to learn that this market is largely unregulated, unless you count the influence of the two mega corporations that created it. Apple and Google have abused their power and used their status as gatekeepers to stifle innovation and penalize developers who want to work alongside them rather than ceding control over their products. This is bad for the industry. It is bad for consumers. It is bad for the country. These gatekeeping tendencies aren't just a bump in the road for developers; they are a roadblock that completely closes off avenues of competition. Apple, for example, forces developers to use their exorbitantly expensive App Store payment system, which funnels profits away from the creators, and it raises prices for consumers. It is a take-it-or-leave-it arrangement. Of course, when developers do take the deal, they leave their relationship with their customers behind because the terms prohibit them from dealing directly with the people who use their products. They also have to accept that Apple and Google will not only prioritize native applications, but they will take their competitors' confidential business information and use it against them. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed my Open App Markets Act, which is a bill we have worked some very long hours on. Finally, we are addressing the stranglehold Big Tech has on the digital app market. I really do thank Senator Blumenthal and his staff, as well as our cosponsors, Senators Klobuchar, Rubio, Lummis, Booker, Graham, Kennedy, Hirono, Hawley, and Chairman Durbin, for putting in so much time and effort to create this bipartisan piece of legislation. This bill will reset the rules of the road to protect competition and consumers by allowing consumers to access third-party apps and app stores, by prohibiting app store owners from locking developers into in-app payment arrangements, by ensuring that app developers are allowed to offer competitive pricing, and by preventing app stores from misusing confidential business information or app store rankings to disadvantage developers. If app store gatekeepers violate these rules of the road, the bill allows for developer lawsuits. It also includes safeguards to allow app stores to protect the privacy, security, and safety of consumers, as well as their own intellectual property rights. It is bipartisan, and it is a good, solid, strong first step. But, remember, our tradition of maintaining competitive marketplaces isn't the only thing at stake here. This weekend, the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing drew in 16 million viewers. That is down from the last Winter Games in 2018, so hopefully, this means that the various campaigns exposing the crimes and manipulation of the Chinese Communist Party are making a difference. But, still, those 16 million people and their families are taking in Chinese propaganda. The Games' corporate sponsors weren't worried about that; they were happy to take advantage of all those eyeballs. And we know NBC hopes to surpass the nearly $2 billion in revenue they pulled in during the Tokyo Games. Protecting that competitiveness is important, but I would argue that protecting the human rights of people those sponsors and broadcasters are happy to sweep under the rug is even more important. And right at this very moment, Big Tech is facilitating crimes against humanity in China. Beijing is notorious for censoring speech critical of the communist government, but part of their grand strategy to silence dissent involves strong-arming corporations seeking access to the very lucrative Chinese market. It is not enough to offer an exciting product; you have to play nice with the CCP or else you are out. You can't be in their market. That means staying quiet about genocide in Xinjiang or violent repression in Hong Kong and doing everything in your power to make sure your customers stay silent too. The Open App Markets Act has received an outpouring of support from human rights activists who see firsthand how corporate gatekeeping actively endangers the lives of dissidents, activists, Uighur Muslims, Mongols, Tibetans, Hong Kong freedom fighters, and other innocent people the CCP has chosen to brutalize. We received a letter of support for the Open App Markets Act signed by many of these individuals that I would like to share. They wrote, in part: China suppresses nearly all dissent using its notorious ``Great Firewall'' internet filtering system and through the cooperation of domestic and foreign companies that are willing to block and remove accounts, content, and applications at the unchallenged request of Chinese authorities. Few American companies are as subservient to the Chinese government as Apple. Apple willingly censors dissenting voices and independent media for all in China and Hong Kong using its control over the App Store. We received another letter from the human rights organization GreatFire that details specific examples of Apple doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. They wrote in part: GreatFire, an organization dedicated to fighting internet censorship, started monitoring Apple's censorship in November 2013, when Apple decided to remove our ``Free Weibo'' application from the Chinese App Store. Apple did not even wait for the intervention of any Chinese judicial authority to determine if our app had actually broken any Chinese law. It collaborated with the Chinese authorities and dealt with our app the same way it has continued to deal with many more apps: by enforcing arbitrary and politically motivated censorship to ensure its financial interest. I ask unanimous consent to have these two letters printed in the Record.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it was such a joy to be in Tennessee last week and visit with so many of our local officials, and I had the opportunity to spend some time with some of our sheriffs. And one of the sheriffs made a point that I think deserves attention in this body today. He said: Marsha, for years, we have measured the drugs we have apprehended in grams or ounces, but today everything is in pounds. That is the uptick in volume that our local law enforcement is seeing in our communities. Now, the question is, Why is this happening? How is it that so much more is getting across that southern border? And my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Missouri have each mentioned the problems that exists there--no ``Remain in Mexico,'' no wall. And we are at a time here in this country where our supply chains are really being stressed, but the supply chains of the cartels seem to be doing just fine. Fortunately, our Border Patrol has been able to cause some blips and some problems with those supply chains, and they have been able to apprehend some of the drugs coming across our border. In January, in a period of 7 days--1 week--our Border Patrol caught 47 pounds of methamphetamine in California, 3,800 pounds of marijuana in two raids in Texas, and 20 pounds of cocaine in Texas. The street value was about $7 million that they pulled off of the street, but this is, unfortunately, a blip for the cartels--just a blip on their radar. These thousands of pounds of drugs are a footnote in the long history of the ``got-aways'' and the drug mules who keep these cartel supply lines flowing from South and Central America and into the United States. Now, as my colleagues have said, until this administration decides they want to get serious about protecting our Nation's sovereignty and securing this southern border, this is going to continue. Now, what does this cause in our country? What it means is every town is a border town, and every State is a border State. Until the Biden administration decides they are going to get serious on that border, it means that your town will function like a border town, your State like a border State. Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis are all experiencing some of the same problems that you are seeing on our Nation's borders. And whether the State is Maryland or Wisconsin or Nevada, whether these are other States--Illinois, Colorado--what you are seeing are these problems that are brought about by an open border: gangs, cartels, human smuggling, sex trafficking. So I would ask my Democratic colleagues, and I would hope they would ask the President: Where else do they think these thousands of pounds of drugs are being headed? That is right. It is a rhetorical question, but they are coming to your neighborhoods, and your local law enforcement agencies are going to find themselves dealing with this. Now, the Biden administration has said, repeatedly, that they want to focus their border policy on finding the root causes of illegal immigration. So Vice President Harris recently took her second trip to the Northern Triangle so she could try and figure out what the root causes are. But while she is there and meeting with diplomats, the cartels' drug trade, along with their human trafficking trade, is booming. It is booming. The number of apprehensions across this southern border are at an alltime high. And as my colleague mentioned, the ``got-aways''--the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways,'' the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways'' that are now in your communities--the hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds of different drugs are coming into your communities. We have been down this road before. We have made investments in the Northern Triangle to try and beat back the poverty, the corruption, and we are having the same problems. They are the same that they were years ago. There is no buy-in on a policy. The only buy-in that this administration has managed to earn is the buy-in of corrupt officials and drug lords who have invested in our wide-open border. Why is it that you have to pay the cartel to come in? Why is it that the cartels are moving these sex trafficking rings onto U.S. shores? Why is it that the cartels are setting up distribution centers in our cities? It is because this administration has that border wide open, and they see the opportunity to make big bucks, to really enrich themselves. How can we expect to fight corruption when we encourage them to set up these business operations? I would encourage my Democratic colleagues to take a look at the numbers that are coming from that southern border, look at numbers that were there from 2021, look at the numbers of not grams and ounces but pounds of illicit drugs that are being apprehended, talk to their local law enforcement about what they are finding on their streets, and then ask themselves: Are you doing everything you can to keep our communities safe? Are you doing everything that you can to keep our children and our grandchildren safe in their communities? If you had to answer that question today, if the administration had to answer that question today, the answer would be an emphatic, no, they are not because the border is open. That policy is failing the American people; it is failing our communities that are truly struggling to keep drugs out of the hands of kids; and it is failing the thousands upon thousands of people who took you at your word--and then you have seen this border turned over to the cartels. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, my Democratic colleagues are continuing what started last week, with spending hours trying to convince Members of their own party, both here in this Chamber and across the country, that they had no choice but to blow up the Senate rules by firing a partisan torpedo at the filibuster. Now, it appears, from what we have heard, that they used demeaning, shaming words and really went about weaving quite a frightening tale about what would happen if their Democratic colleagues did not cave on this issue. That tale was no more based in reality than the vial accusations of racism that they have hurled at those who oppose this push to single-party rule. Last week, when this insulting narrative started to collapse, they tried a new approach and pitched their assault on the Senate as a ``carve-out'' to accommodate an emergency change to election law. I fully believe, when someone is going to tell you who they are, you should believe them. And over the past year, we have watched Joe Biden and the Democrats throw self-control out the window and leverage emergency after emergency to expand their power. Joe Biden signed more than a dozen Executive orders in the very first hours of his Presidency, knowing that if he did not do this, these policies would never see the light of day. The people--and that is the people of this country--hadn't seen fit to give his allies in Congress the majority that he needed for his agenda, so he waved his pen and conjured up a mandate for himself. And now, his Democratic allies in the Senate are prepared to do the exact same thing on behalf of a bill that would federalize elections in America, stripping away protections for the ballot box and injecting uncertainty into the voting process. Who asked for this? No one. If the American people wanted this, they would have given the Democrats the majority they needed to get it done. But they didn't. And, in fact, I hear from Tennesseans every day who want it to be easier to vote and harder to cheat, not the other way around. But based on what I have seen, I have come to the conclusion that what the people want no longer seems to matter to our Democratic colleagues. We can take today's event as proof that if the people don't see fit to give them the power, they will come and take that power and turn the Senate into a rubberstamp they can deploy when an Executive order just won't get the job done. That really frightens Tennesseans because they can see what is coming down the path: open borders, court packing, gun control, the Green New Deal, abortion on demand, socialized healthcare, speech restrictions, federalized elections, and more out-of-control spending, and, yes, higher inflation. We know that this is the future that the Democrats are laying out for America. It is the future that they see for our children and grandchildren because these policies are the policies that they have fought for since long before Joe Biden took office. Do we really think that this attack on the Senate rules will stop with an election law takeover? The American people don't think it will. Tennesseans do not think that it will. As I said, when somebody shows you who they really are, you ought to believe them. And as I have said previously, this is no way to run the world's greatest deliberative body, but this is exactly how the Democrats are choosing to go about trying to destroy it. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, the Senator from Missouri is exactly right. We are going to hear so much about this, and the reason is, as the American people hear about this so-called election bill, what they are realizing is, it is not something that is going to make their local election safer. It is something that is going to put that power in Washington, DC. Now, what we are hearing from the majority leader and the Democratic leadership is that they have got to get rid of the filibuster in order to push forward this election bill, adding States, packing courts--all of this laundry list of a socialist agenda that they are planning to execute. So what I want to do today for a couple of minutes is just walk us down memory lane as to what people have had to say, what our Democratic colleagues have had to say about the filibuster. In May of 2005, then-Senator Joe Biden came to the floor and he vigorously jumped into the middle of a debate over the filibuster. He said that things would go very wrong if his colleagues decided to blow up the rules to get their way. What is interesting about Senator Biden's position is that it had almost nothing to do with his policy goals. Here is his quote: Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a consequence, and would undermine the protections of a minority point of view in the heat of majority excess. He understood, at that point in time, the importance of preserving the Senate's institutional power and abiding by standards that not only welcome but require deliberation and compromise. Well, what a difference a few years and a Senate majority can make. Today, we are having the exact same debate, but the power my Democratic colleagues won in the last election has changed their minds about breaking the Senate to get their way. The problem is, the Senate is not broken. It does not need their changes. But the rules no longer matter to the majority leader, even though he said as recently as 2017: [L]et us go no further down this road. I hope the Republican leader and I can, in the coming months, find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House. Without the 60-vote threshold for legislation, the Senate becomes a majoritarian institution like the House, much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change. Well, my, my, my, how about that? He understood the dangers of legislative whiplash, even when he was in the minority. So did my colleague Senator Durbin, who said in 2018 that he believed that ending the filibuster would ``be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created, going back to our Founding Fathers.'' Well, I am going to ask the Senators from New York and Illinois: What happened here? What changed their minds so drastically? They have done a 180. I would ask the same question of many of my Democratic colleagues. In 2017, 32 Senate Democrats--yes, that is correct, 32, many of whom are still serving in this Chamber today--signed onto a bipartisan letter in support of the filibuster. Now, they, too, have changed their minds. It makes you wonder: What is everybody on the Democratic aisle drinking these days? This is no way to run the world's greatest deliberative body, but it is a great way to destroy it. Between 2017 and today, many Senate Democrats changed their minds about how to handle the filibuster. Over the past year, we have watched Joe Biden and the Democrats attack more than one institution forming the foundation of this Nation. The Supreme Court, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, limits on the power of the Executive, and, now, the Senate rules have all proved to be inconvenient to their agenda and ended up on the chopping block. That is where they are putting them. My Democratic colleagues may be frustrated, but that is just too bad. The Senate was not designed to rubberstamp legislation that is so belligerently foolish it can't tempt a single Republican vote--not one. No. The Senate was designed to protect the American people and the institution itself from shortsighted leadership. My colleagues claim that all they are asking for is one teeny little carve-out--just one. But I would remind them that there is only so much carving you can do before you reduce the entire thing to dust. And based on their track record, we have no reason to trust that they will stop carving and put down the knife rather than use it to hold the Senate hostage the next time they can't scrounge up the votes to check something off their to-do list. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, when Tennesseans go to the polls and cast their vote, they do so with the hope that the person whose name appears on their ballot will do what is best for their community. They expect that person to show respect for the Constitution and the rule of law and to protect the integrity of our most important institutions. The people place a great deal of trust in us, and I don't think it is too much to ask that we return the favor by recognizing that there are limits to how far the Federal Government can expand its reach. Many of my Democratic colleagues, however, would disagree with me on that premise. They returned to Washington this week ready to squander the people's trust on yet another power grab. The election bill they are prepared to break the Senate rules to pass has failed multiple times, under multiple titles, and in different packaging. This has gone on for the last 20 years. But this latest round has one thing in common with all the other drafts that found their rightful place in the trash can: It has nothing to do with protecting the ballot box. This is not a voting rights bill; it is a sweeping takeover of our democracy and a shocking attack on the constitutional authority of the States to determine the time, place, and manner of elections. That is right. This is not in statute; it is article I, section 4 of the Constitution. I have said it before. I will say it again. These proposals read like something concocted by someone who has never stepped foot behind the scenes of their local polling place. It is concocted by people who probably have never spent 10 minutes as a poll worker carrying out and implementing an election, and they absolutely have never served a term on a local election commission. It seems that our friends across the aisle are looking at all of these local elected and appointed officials who work elections and are saying: We think that you just are incapable and inept to carry out an election. How disrespectful can you be? The Federal Government has got to come in and save the day and take away the ability of your local elections registrar to carry forward an election. I hope my colleagues will think about the message that they are sending because there is nothing in these proposals that would help your State and local leaders secure elections, and, in fact, many provisions would actually weaken the checks already in place against voter fraud. This is the opposite of how it should be. It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat, not the other way around. And the people of this country and elected leaders have been saying no to the Federal takeover of elections for the past 20 years. But here we are again having to once again stand up against this desperate attempt to undermine voters and empower cheats and criminals by mandating ballot harvesting while rejecting voter ID requirements. That is in their bill--got to do it, got to allow ballot harvesting. That is where shenanigans happen. We can't have voter ID requirements--no, no, no. We don't want anybody at the ballot box having to prove who they are. But be ready to show that ID if you want to get on a plane, if you want to get in a government building, if you want to go buy a bottle of wine. Be ready to show that ID, prove your age, and prove who you are. Their bill would also centralize power over elections in the hands of faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats--that is right--not your friends and neighbors working the polls and making decisions and serving on local election commissions. You will never know the people who say, ``Hey, you are too stupid to figure out how to run these elections,'' because the Democrats are going to take all the power and authority away from your local friends and neighbors and send it to bureaucrats here in DC. And they would embrace a one-size-fits-all rule book that any seasoned election worker knows will throw polling places into chaos. In my home county in Tennessee, we have people who have worked these polls for years. They are dedicated. They are good people. I don't know their political party. I just know that they show up to make certain that our elections are free and fair, and I appreciate them. Since the first iteration of this bill reared its head, the American people have seen it for what it is: an activist-driven, power-hungry solution in search of problems that do not exist. That is right; the problems don't exist. The Democrats want you to believe that America as we know it will end if they don't pass this bill. They are acting like elections are in crisis. But do you know what? I think maybe it is the Democratic Party that is in crisis. They are staring at decades-high inflation, crime spikes, cascading public health failures, a southern border on the verge of collapse, embarrassing approval ratings, infighting so intense that watching the nightly news feels like you are watching a soap opera. They can't get their arms around COVID. They can't figure it out. I just heard coming over here that the CDC is now going to mandate that insurance companies have to supply home testing kits for all of their enrollees. I mean, yeah, I think it is a party in crisis. And do you know what? The Democrats right now, they are desperate for a distraction. Oh, just give them something to change the narrative. And the benefit of this one, if they could pull this off, is that they won't have to worry about the American people holding them accountable for the fallout because they now will control the ballot process; they will control the election commissions. And do you know what they are saying to the American public? Your vote doesn't count. We have treasured one person, one vote. We have treasured fair, free, honest elections. And the Democrats are ready to throw it away for a power grab that is unprecedented and is incredibly disrespectful of the men and women in each of our counties who give of their time and work to hold these elections. This is more than just another example of partisanship holding the Senate hostage. And it is partisanship. It is ``We have to do this, take away power from the people.'' Oh, isn't it supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? But, oh, I think my colleagues across the aisle have forgotten that. They think it is government for the powerful, government that is in control of one party and one party's agenda. That is what they are thinking. This attack on the integrity of our elections is a complete betrayal of the trust that the people have given elected officials because we have colleagues across the aisle who are basically looking at their constituents in their various States and saying: Your opinion does not count. Think about that. You are not good enough. You are not smart enough. You can't handle it. So, hey--Federal Government--we are going to come and save you from yourselves. That is what they think. It is their constitutional prerogative to determine the time, place, and manner of their own elections. That is what is given to the State legislatures. It is their prerogative, and it is not the job of Congress or the President or a battalion of unelected, faceless, nameless, unaccountable bureaucrats to burn down the goalposts when things at the ballot box don't go their way. But that is exactly what the Democratic Party is trying to do this week. So you never will be able to complain to them. They want to hold all the cards. The purpose of this latest power grab isn't to make the people feel secure. Its purpose is to inject hysteria into what should be a very serious conversation about actually protecting the vote. Everything the people hear from the Democrats this week will have been scripted to minimize truth and maximize chaos. Remember, they want you to believe that elections are in crisis. ``We have to fix it.'' But, fortunately, Tennesseans and the American people know better than to believe what they are hearing on the nightly news and to believe what is coming from the Democratic Party. They also know there is only one reason a political party would work this hard to make elections easier for them to manipulate. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I know that you are probably like me and you have been grateful for the time to be home and to see family and friends and just to chat with them about what is going on in their lives and the issues that are important to them, what they are looking at. It has been so interesting to get their perspective as we have visited. I flipped through the papers yesterday, and I realize that many of our friends around town have this renewed sense of optimism about President Biden's ability to lead the country. I found that really quite interesting. You could look at it and say: It may be a new year, but it is the same old Biden. It goes without saying that I do not share what I see as a misguided view. I entered this year with the same healthy skepticism that I had back in December as we were finishing that legislative year. I will say this; that for the past year, the Democratic majority has indulged an administration that has treated their electoral victory like a mandate to enact some of the most irresponsible and radical policies we have seen in over a generation. Now they are dusting off an agenda that is so unhinged, it has kept the Democrats deadlocked against one another for the year. We have seen this agenda breed mistrust, tension, and anger between the American people and their government. Few, if any, of those people could state that they are better off now than they were under President Trump and Republican leadership. But still, the Democratic majority has continued to push Biden's agenda on behalf of the most radical portions of their base. Yes, leaning left--they are leaning far left. They are listening to the social justice warriors and the climate partisans and the Big Government activists, and the Democratic leadership is doing exactly what they are telling them they want done. Meanwhile, they are ignoring the people back home who actually have to deal with the consequences of this political tunnel vision. Time after time in poll after poll, even more polls that have come out today, the American people have made it abundantly clear that they are not just dissatisfied with the President's failure to lead, with his radical agenda--you know what, they are not just angry. What I learned from Tennesseans is that people are really frightened by what they see taking place with this far-left, hard-left turn. President Biden has to know all of this. The Democratic leadership has to know all of this. Look at all the polls. It doesn't matter if it is NPR, it doesn't matter if it is AP, it doesn't matter if it is CNN, the agenda, the President, the Vice President--they are all underwater. I think they have probably seen this coming since day one of this disastrous administration. Take some of the specific issues. The Democratic leadership has had a front row seat to what is happening on the southern border. So has the administration. There has been a complete collapse of our Nation's sovereignty at the southern border. With the stroke of a pen, President Biden dismantled the policies that were keeping us safe. He invited waves of illegal immigrants into the country, said: Y'all come. Y'all come. We are ready for you. He threw the Border Patrol and local law enforcement under the bus, did not listen to them. You don't have to take my word for it. Go to the southern border. Go visit with them. He has let the cartel step into the leadership void at the southern border. The drug dealers and the human traffickers are in control of the southern border at this point in time. You do not cross that border unless you have paid the cartels. But you know what, admitting this does not fit the agenda of the Democratic leadership, so they just ignore it. Now, President Biden and my Democratic colleagues continue to evade responsibility for keeping the border secure and safeguarding the national security. They don't want to talk about that. They are also not wanting to talk about the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and our other adversaries abroad. And that is right--the Chinese Communist Party is an adversary. They are not a competitor. They are not a friend or a frenemy. They are an adversary. What are they doing? They are conducting surveillance, academic espionage, and intellectual property theft. They are doing this every single day. It is all part of the standing operating procedures of the new axis of evil and all being ignored by people who are charged with running this country, keeping this country safe. Tennesseans will tell you they are very concerned. The American people are very concerned. The polls are showing it. And they are blaming the Biden administration for not feeling safe, not feeling secure, for the supply chain crisis, for inflation. These are all things that have been brought about in the past year by decisions this administration has made, Executive orders they have executed. Every time people in this country pick up their phone, they are faced with the knowledge that many of the programs and social media platforms that they once enjoyed are controlled by people who refuse to prioritize privacy and data security and realize that these cyber protections are important. They are grateful for all the sunlight that you and I, Mr. President, have been able to shine on the problems with Big Tech. So many times as I was at home, people would mention to me how much they have learned through the hearings that we have held, the roundtable discussions, and they are wanting to see more attention brought to keeping us safe and limiting the surveillance, the property theft, and the academic espionage that the Chinese Communist Party and our adversaries are conducting in the virtual space. They are looking forward to seeing us translate this bipartisan consensus into action. They are looking forward to what we are going to deliver when it comes to online privacy, data security, section 230 reforms, to protect our innovators, to protect our children online, to protect our consumers. When people look at what is being done, like the work we have done on technology policy, and what is not being done when it comes to addressing China, addressing Russia, dealing with Iran, when it comes to dealing with inflation, prices at the pump, and prices that are happening at the grocery store, they look at this and they say: Where is the President? Where is the Vice President? Where are people who should be working for the American people in Congress? When we talk about the Democratic leadership, we know that they are too busy catering to the most radical fringe of the Democratic Party to do their job, and they are too busy with that to govern or to keep the economy in one piece and to keep the border intact or to provide for the common defense or to exercise a little oversight over some of the world's most powerful corporations. Well, the American people deserve better. Tennesseans are wanting to see action. So while some of our colleagues across the aisle have a renewed sense of optimism about President Biden's ability to pull them out of this skid on this agenda that is going nowhere, the American people have spoken. They do not want what you are offering. My resolve is going to be to stand here, to stand between what is happening, this destructive, as I call it, ``Build Back Broke'' agenda, and to protect Tennesseans and future generations of Americans from such an adverse and negative impact. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I am looking around this Chamber, and I am talking to my colleagues, and it is so apparent; we should not be here right now. Our business should be done. We have had all year. We should have wished one another well last week, and then we should have gotten ourselves home to our families, to our church families, to our neighbors and friends. And right now, I should be in Tennessee wishing Tennesseans well for this Christmas season. But with the way things are going, I am beginning to believe that Joe Biden and the Democrats do not wish the American people well because the fact is, everything they have done this year, in some way, shape, or form, has made life harder for Americans and for Tennesseans, and it has taken away just a little bit more of their freedom. I was talking with a Tennessean last night, and they were making this point to me about the gains that they had seen during Republican control of the House and the Senate and the Trump administration and being able to keep more of their money in their pocket. This was a veteran who talked about our standing in the world. Our allies knew they could trust us. Our enemies, indeed, feared us. All of that is gone. Life is harder; life is more uncertain; it is less predictable; inflation is through the roof. As Tennesseans have turned on the news this week, they have heard an avalanche of news reports holding one or two Members of this body responsible for ``obstructing the democratic process''--something that sounds pretty scary when it is taken out of context, doesn't it? In my opinion, I consider it media malpractice to blame one or two Members of this Chamber for a year's worth of bad-faith delays because Members have asked for a vote on certain national security issues, and the Senate should have weighed in on these issues long ago. The Senate has had the time. The leadership has had the time. So, no, that narrative cannot stand. All these delays and all this strife is the natural conclusion of the Democrats' single-minded obsession with their reckless tax-and-spending spree. My colleagues on the left have, indeed, squandered months trying to strong-arm their moderate colleagues into rubberstamping what I call their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. It is so toxic that even economists who many times are friendly with the White House have turned their backs on the proposal. Even they deem it socialist in nature. This month, we have reaped the consequences of their obsession in the form of 6.8 percent inflation. It is already at a 40-year high. It is still ticking up. Gas prices are increasing. Food is costing more. Warehouses are being cleared out. One hundred and seventy cargo ships are still off the coast of California, 150 miles out. But yet, until a few hours ago, really, the Democrats were pushing for final passage on a spending bill that would make things even worse--would make it worse. It is not $1.75 trillion; it is $5 trillion. It is not paid for. It is not, ``Oh, it doesn't cost a dime''; it costs $3 trillion. That is the conservative estimate. If you look back through the record, you will find almost no help for our supply chains that I mentioned that are all backed up, and you will find at least one terrible mistake that made the bad situation worse. Joe Biden's vaccine mandates started inflicting damage on the economy and our supply chains well before the courts started throwing up their roadblocks, and thank goodness the courts are backing where the American people are on this mandate issue. In Tennessee, these foolish mandates could cost businesses more than $70 million and force 37 percent of our labor force out of work. My Democratic colleagues, however, have wasted hours here on the Senate floor defending what is truly a blatant power grab. Does it make the lives of Tennesseans and Americans better? Absolutely not. It makes them worse. They have somehow neglected to acknowledge that these mandates don't reach as far as our southern border. Isn't it amazing? In fact, most of the policies they are so eager to force on the American people that are making their lives worse evaporate once you hit the border, which is even more chaotic now than it was on day 1 of the Biden administration. If you look back on the past year, you will find little in the way of assistance for our Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers. Oh, no, can't do that. Oh, no, let's reinvent the police. Let's reinvent law enforcement. Oh, no, we can't put more assets on the southern border to defend our sovereignty. It makes you believe that the Democratic Party is pleased with the chaos that they are seeing in border communities all across that southern border. What my friends across the aisle have done is basically to hand power, control, and billions of dollars to those cartels. And they have opened up their arms, and they have welcomed now right at 2 million people to illegally enter this country. No vaccine mandates apply to them. Oh, no, sir, not at all--preference. Let's go ahead. They can go through a separate TSA line when they get on a plane with a taxpayer- funded plane ticket. And all the time, the lives of Americans under this administration, they are not as well off as they were a year ago. Their life is not as comfortable as it was a year ago. Now, if security was even an inkling of a priority with my colleagues, if security had any importance at all, securing this Nation--you know, it is kind of one of the first things we are supposed to do, provide for the common defense. But this week, we finally got around to passing the NDAA. How about that? Finally got it done. Now, we wouldn't have had to wait until this week to take the threat of what I call the ``axis of evil'' seriously--the threats coming from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. I can assure you, they are watching us very closely, and they are keeping up with what we are doing to protect this Nation. Why are they so aggressive right now? They are looking at Joe Biden, and they are saying, He is weak, he is not going to do anything to push back on us. You know, he talked about a few economic sanctions with Russia, but Putin is not worried about that. How about sanctioning, stopping trade, sanctioning so many other areas, stopping the Nord Stream 2--how about that--to show that we are going to deal with them as they, an adversary of ours, deserve to be dealt with? We don't do any of that. Oh, no, let's not make Xi Jinping mad. Let's not do anything like that. Let's not call him into account. Let's let him keep carrying out that genocide on the Uighurs. Oh, and you know, let's do this; let's just have a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. But go ahead and let our corporations, let our TV networks and their cameras broadcast to the world the glory of Beijing and Xi Jinping. Inconsistencies and weakness do not serve us well. They do not. And instead of looking at things that should be a priority, my colleagues across the aisle have kept their focus on trying to pass a gigantic spending bill that the American people do not want and programs they say we don't need. But the Democrats are saying that we are going to pass it by whatever means necessary--whatever means necessary. We are going to get this done. Thank goodness, we are leaving here, and it is not done. Now, woven into this exercise in partisan brinksmanship was an ongoing effort to punch holes in the very institutions that keep our government from collapsing into chaos. We have watched our Democratic colleagues fail to gain traction with policies that people haven't asked for and, as I said, don't want. But instead of setting their power grabs and wish list aside, the Democrats tried to find ways to crash through constitutional and institutional backstops and force their will on the American people. You hear it all the time: Time is running out. We are going to lose the House; we are going to lose the Senate so we have got to do this. We have got to transform the country. Well, they have gone round after round with the Supreme Court and the Federal court packers, the anti-filibuster crowd, and those who wish to attack the integrity of the ballot box. They don't want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat; they are trying to make it easier to cheat and harder to vote. And, repeatedly, they continue to try to look for somebody who blame. It has got to be somebody else's fault. Just yesterday, we saw a wave of righteous indignation over the Senate Parliamentarian's refusal to allow the Democrats to shove amnesty for illegal immigrants into a budget bill. That is right. They should not have been surprised by the ruling. They tried it once, twice, three times, and every time, they should have known how this was going to end. You can't do that. It is almost as if all this has nothing to do with the policies printed on the thousands upon thousands of pages the Democrats are hoping nobody reads--because they feel like they have got a deadline, they have got to do this, time is running out. By whatever means necessary, let's just get it done. Well, there is no serious person--none--who could look at this past year and conclude that Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been acting in good faith, doing things the people want to see done, because their agenda has been the opposite of that. That is why so many elected representatives in the House and the Senate are saying: Hey, I am going home, and I am talking to people. We are getting calls in our office. We are getting emails. People are speaking up. They don't like this. The more they know about what we are doing, the less they like it. There is no serious person who could look at these underhanded attacks on our institution and conclude that the Democrats believe more in the common cause of freedom than they do in passing their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. They have got to have it. They have just got to have it. And no serious person could look at the past year and dispute that it is Joe Biden and the Democrats who were the architects of their own destructive agenda. And the reason we are all still here at the eleventh hour waiting on the majority is because they have put their power before the people. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, the time has come to once again bid farewell to another one of Team Blackburn's esteemed fellows. Over the past year, we have had the privilege of working with Capt. Edward Pritchard, who came to us from the U.S. Marine Corps to serve as our first Department of Defense fellow. It was a strange year to be a fellow here in the Senate, but Ed rose to the occasion and impressed us. He impressed every one of us with his work ethic, humor, and his singular commitment to maintaining the strength and integrity of the U.S. military. It has truly been an honor having Ed on our team, and I think I speak for each and every one of us when I say we will miss him. Captain Pritchard, I thank you for your service to Tennessee and to this great Nation and wish you all the best as you head across the river to the Pentagon to start the next exciting chapter in your already distinguished career.